Short abstract:

We call for contributes that engage with home, a special place where multiple vulnerabilities intersect, while sustainable livelihoods can be pursued. Without limiting our focus on mobility, how can urban ethnography contribute to policy-relevant researches which aim at enabling spatial justice?

Long abstract:

A key sustainable development goal for 2030 hopes for "making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable". This panel invites contributes that engage with the enlacement between home, a specific kind of space (Douglas 1991), and vulnerability, a shifting existential condition (Das 2007). If one's dwelling place should provide a safe base from the intrinsic frailty of being human, its lived experience reveals the continuous interplay of risks and anchorages, in material, symbolic and relational terms.
Homes make a threshold between domestic power scuffles (also mediated by gender and age) and everyday social exposure, ranging from homelessness or lack of shelter to precarious, inadequate or segregated housing arrangements. Multi-scale vulnerabilities may result harsher when considering mobile populations in urban milieus, such as economic migrants and refugees, who often inhabit the social margins, constrained by instances of legal instability and intersectional exclusion (Soya 2010).
This panel calls for different case studies that offer empirical evidence on home as a site of spatial un/justice, where not only multiple vulnerabilities intersect, but social equity and sustainability can also be pursued, complying with or resisting to institutional powers. Without limiting our reflection to migration and diversity matters, we ponder: how can critical, participatory and/or policy-relevant researches in urban ethnography contribute to analyse homes as arenas for more inclusive rights to the city?